Drag racing teammates pledge to donate brains to concussion research

NHRA team owner Don Schumacher and all of his drivers, including Leah Pritchett, committed Friday to donating their brains to concussion research. They are seen celebrating a victory by Pritchett.(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports)

All eight members of an NHRA drag racing team signed paperwork Friday in a pledge to donate their brains to concussion research, the first time an entire team has made such a commitment.

The Don Schumacher Racing teammates hope to improve the racing indistry and help military veterans and future generations.

Team owner and former NHRA racer Don Schumacher, along with his seven drivers – Jack Beckman, Antron Brown, Ron Capps, Matt Hagan, Tommy Johnson Jr., Leah Pritchett and son Tony Schumacher – made the pledge at Bandimere Speedway in Colorado.

“None of this is really something that I consider anything special,” Schumacher said. “I feel this is a really sensible, normal thing that we should do, because we might be able to help somebody.”

The group of drivers will join 3,500 former and current athletes and veterans who have agreed to donate their brains to the Concussion Legacy Foundation since 2008, according to a release. The foundation works to protect athletes through research, policy and education.

Still, the announcement marks the first time drag racers have announced they are donating their brains to research. Only three race car drivers have announced they will donate their brains to science, most notably Dale Earnhardt Jr., who made the commitment in 2016.

Schumacher said the mass donation started with team partner Infinite Hero Foundation, which partnered with the Concussion Legacy Foundation to research Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in military veterans.

Medical research has linked repeated blows to the head and concussions to CTE, a degenerative brain disease that can lead to dementia, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

Schumacher said he made the decision with his children and grandchildren in mind.

He also thought of his son and driver Tony, who rebounded from a horrific crash in Memphis, Tenn,. in 2000. Tony went airborne and flipped violently over the retaining wall.

“Those are the people that I worry more about today,” he said. “How can we help them in the future not deal with some of the things that we’ve had to deal with?”

On any given pass down the drag strip, the 11,000-horsepower cars can put the drivers through nearly 180 g-force, as Brittany Force experienced early this season.

The cars launch and slow at 5 g-force, and the violent tire shakes that rattle the drivers inside the cockpit can cause their heads to bounce around at 330 mph.

Brown has experienced this first hand. He said he’s had tire shake so bad he was forced to go to the doctor, where he discovered he had a mild concussion.

“I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve done through stuff and rattled the car like that, and the next day you wake up and you still have a headache, or if you shook your head side-to-side and you actually feel it,” he said. “You rattle your head pretty good in those cars, and people don’t realize the trauma that we put ourselves through.”

Pritchett said she knows the safety precautions she takes now are because of what others suffered. She agreed to donate her brain because she wants to the future to be proactive, not reactive.

“The first thing that crossed my mind was there are reasons that I wear the helmet that I wear today,” she said. “All of it, unfortunately, has come from a negative event that people have learned from. I thought ‘Once we’re gone off the face of our beautiful earth, our legacy is just what we’ve done before, but how can we help improve the general public?’”

Pritchett added that the goal of the announcement is not to scare people away from the industry but to help make it safer.

“We’re not looking to highlight any type of negativity or dangers of any sport,” she said. “That’s life in general, and that’s what we choose. From a research standpoint, from CTE, if we’re able to maybe cure it at some point in the stage and treat CTE in a living human that has it, well now you’re improving someone’s life and you’re making dramatic changes to our society.”